Predator Prey
by truhekili
Summary: Addison returns 2 months after S4 finale. Karma follows her. What's She want? Partial follow up to "Pyromania" re-capped briefly in first section . Addison/Alex; Addex. Experimental format; patience please. One-shot. I own nothing.
1. Chapter 1

You believe in Karma. You're not religious, not formally, and you don't worry that an angry God might punish your infidelities. But Karma is more like gravity than divinity, a universal constant who always claims Her due. Karma also has a wicked sense of humor, and delights in Her work - which is why you nearly jump out of your pricey red Manolos, when Karma comes knocking on your door.

You'd returned to Seattle barely twelve hours before, for a consult, and you watch warily as Karma ushers him into your hotel room. You try to read him, but that, you remember, is like trying to read Braille with chop sticks. Even his face is an enigma: from one angle, chiseled, mature, rugged, from another, soft, young, almost innocent. Karma giggles at Her handiwork: Alex Karev is anything but innocent.

But he is standing in front of you, and your very name, Addison Forbes Montgomery Shepherd – no, Addison Forbes Montgomery - mocks you. He was not part of the plan. You married stable, predictable Derek, and spent a decade doing predictable, stable things; you'd planned on a lifetime. You'd never planned on Mark. Derek had been the proper man for your name and your aspirations, but his affection was stiff, and chilly, and indifferent, and offered only at his convenience. And you never admitted to anyone that Mark had been your first great love. Karma knew anyway.

You study Alex's brooding eyes, and wonder why he once reminded you so of Mark, Mark with his sunny exuberance - which intoxicated you like dry champagne. Mark freed you, when you were suffocating under the weight of your name, when you planned every thing, and obeyed all the rules. He mocked them at every turn, and you could breathe again, until his contempt for rules turned on you, and you vanished once more, not behind Derek's indifference but behind Mark's self-absorption. Karma saw it all.

You tried to speak, tried to will your legs to move. You'd only ever wanted, really wanted, one man before, and Alex wasn't Mark. He was arrogant and indifferent to your rules, like Mark. But he was unpredictably sweet and uncertain, and he always saw you, even when you were not being Addison Forbes Montgomery, when your sheer effort to sustain the appearance of effortless perfection went up in smoke. He saw everything. And he didn't flinch - not this time - even when you pressed your lips to his. Karma cackled wildly; a perverse conspiracy was set in motion.

--

You knew you should never have come back, the moment his lips met yours. You'd left to get away from Seattle, where it not only rains constantly, but rains men, where they pour off of ferry boats, and down hotel hallways, and even out of the plumbing, shrouded in steam. You knew you should never have answered the door, and you try to believe that last night was a dream, and you're relieved when you wake up alone. Then you see it, and admit that no matter how vivid your dreams of him had been lately, they'd never left behind hastily scribbled notes about early morning rounds.

Climbing out of your luxurious hotel bed, you steel yourself to return to Seattle Grace, scene of so many prior crimes. Two hours later, you march through familiar doors hoping you won't see him, or him, or him. But of course Derek's there with his intern, and Mark's there with his pickle, and you wonder if Karma's laughing as you round past the Psych ward in a near sprint, seeking cover.

You hunker down in Callie's office, and she knows you're hiding, and you're sure she'll think you're unhinged if you tell her that you feel him everywhere, and that he makes your hair stand on end, and that he prowls the halls like a jaguar stalking his prey. You nervously pop the cover off your salad, wondering if you weren't better off with Derek's indifference or with Mark's self-absorption, with being unseen – which was safer, at least, than being devoured by a jaguar's roving eyes.

You joke with Callie about LA over lunch; she asks you if chew toys are on the menu, and you ask her about Alex and Ava. You don't like how her eyes darken when she says it ended two months ago - and adds nothing more. She asks if he said anything to about it you the night before, and you admit sheepishly that there hadn't been talking, and you both roll you eyes, and you remember why you miss her so much, and she mentions Erica Hahn and you realize how much things have changed.

You head to the NICU for your consult, and he hunts you down later as you're leaving the building, and the chase is a blur, and you're in your hotel room again, and those aren't Derek's teeth sinking into your neck, or Mark's claws digging into your shoulder. You recall that Derek was too refined, and even Mark too civilized, to do what he's doing with his tongue. With Derek it was just boring and with Mark it was light and fun, but now it's a more dangerous game. You know that this one plays to win, and that now you're in the jungle being pursued by a jaguar, and you can barely see his eyes glint yellow in the pale moonlight, and you know the darkness is his natural habitat.

As a scientist, you understand survival of the fittest, and you know that the first law of the jungle is that there are no laws. You watch civilization crumple to the ground when your shirt buttons go flying. Among cultivated peoples, hierarchies stand where you're more accomplished and where he's just the help. But only one hierarchy lurks in this jungle, where the strong and the agile roam freely, where the pounding rain sweeps across the windows. You need to defend your territory, and you can almost hear his heartbeat roaring in his chest as he surrounds you, and you rake your nails across his skin, and you hear his kiss lower into a growl at the first hint of blood.

You want to ask about Ava while civilization still dangles around your ankles, clinging precariously to your skirt, when words are still an option. But his instinct is to pounce, and he has already scouted his territory, and your own feral moaning conjures a primitive, rhythmic madness as the heat and the rain and the darkness, as his scent and his heartbeat and his taste, devour you. You know that words are too fragile for the jungle anyway, that they melt in the heat and evaporate with the dew and blend into the chatter of insects at sundown, and that they offer no protection from the murmurings of a sated jaguar, coiled around you like a second skin, purring contentedly.

You knew it was another mistake the minute you woke, your head still throbbing, your legs still shaking, civilization still strewn in ruins amid the clothes and the bed linens carpeting the floor. It was a Karmic plot, you were sure - the sunlight streaming through the drapes – as one of Seattle's rare sunny days dawned. You shifted warily under the jaguar's weight, pausing at each muted whimper and sigh as you uncoiled him, his regal pelt rippling against you as you try to escape without rousing him.

Fumbling for cover, you dive for your suitcase in a bid to restore order. You don your expensive designer suit, reminding yourself that he's the help, and your name badge, to assert who you are, and you put up your hair, to recall that across the street vertical hierarchies reign, that power shifts decisively back to you, that your vision is sharper and your head clearer than his in more civilized venues.

Fortified by the night's retreat, you move hastily toward the door, glancing back briefly, shaking off the stray thought that jaguars are hunted for their skins. You knew that you'd regret it, and you could hear Karma cackling wildly at the sight of you - fleeing a luxury hotel room, on a bright fall day, in a thriving city, wondering if you should alert the Seattle Zoo, or animal control, or just hotel housekeeping, that you'd left a naked jaguar in your bed, curled up sleek and lithe, sleeping peacefully in the sun.

--

You spy her with Sloan later that afternoon and your blood curdles, because you're just Karev and he's Mark Sloan the famous plastic surgeon, and he's your Attending, and he owns your ass for as far into the future as you've ever cared to look. You hate how he crowds her like he owns her, and how she laughs when he leans into her hair, and you know that they have more history then you'll ever know, and that she thinks you're just an inferior version of him, which sucks because he's even worse scum then you.

You lurk in a shadowy corner and hope they don't see you, because you're no longer her intern but you're still his errand boy, and you hate how your face reddens when he reams you in front of her, and it's hard to play to win when you're sucking up just to end the dry cleaning and coffee runs.

She has lunch with Callie and your slink away from the cafeteria and your stomach churns because you know she'll ask about Ava, and Callie will tell all – that the only woman who ever thought you were worth anything turned out to be crazy, that you'd screwed it all up, that you spent the last two months bumbling through rounds like a loser first year, that you were your own freaking cluster on the hospital grapevine.

She meets Shepherd in the hallway and you skulk furtively after them and you see their comfortable familiarity. You know it means nothing since Shepherd's a worse ass then Sloan, except that he's always just one bottle of Tequila and an inappropriate man away from being a free agent again, and she never wanted the divorce in the first place, and he's a neurosurgeon with the money and the pedigree, and she'd wanted him enough to follow him to Seattle the first time and to forgive him for Grey, and he might be baggage but he's designer baggage, and actually in her league.

--

Your surgery goes well and you feel his eyes tracking you from across the table and your senses heighten and alarm bells blare but you take the job anyway. You move back to Seattle and he has a key to your place and it doesn't really make sense that you can be stalked by a jaguar ten flights up in a city condo that doesn't even allow goldfish. You ask him about Ava, and all he says is that the tests were wrong. You know there's more, but then he's kissing you and you feel the jungle roaring through his veins and you feel his teeth and his claws and you wonder just how many condo bylaws you're violating by keeping him there and if anyone enforces the laws of nature, anyway.

You suspect that he really is interested, and you know sequels never bode well - Jaws returns, the Empire strikes back, Jason rises from the dead – and you're not ready for Mark 2.0 – and the once bitten, twice shy equation comically understates your current predicament, and you should stop this madness before you're dragged even deeper into the wilderness.

Later that week, you ask about Ava again and he makes a bad joke and you try to read his face to identify which member of his maddening six-pack personality is talking. You know that the jaguar's eyes are yellow, the five year old's a warm brown, and the twelve year old's a speckled hazel; that Karev's are almost smoky, the wrestler's more hooded, and Alex's liquid amber flecked with gold. Your security depends on deciphering these signals and you consider keeping a chart, since that's how civilization advances, through research and graphs and charts and spread sheets arrayed against nature. You know that that's the human advantage in the hunt, and you need more information.

But you ask around and all you learn is that Ava was there and then she wasn't, that there was blood and screaming and a fight with Stevens. You ask him again but then he kisses you and civilization falls as he rises and the rain returns and you swear you hear thunder coursing right through his body. You recall your physics, and you know that if you're close enough to hear thunder, you're close enough for a lightening strike, and you review the chemistry of combustion, and you cling to that last shred of reason, to the symbolic equation that ends in carbon dioxide and water, in CO2 and H20, until you feel the sweat and you hear the panting and your body goes up in smoke.

--

Weeks later you wake up with a start, and she's sitting up beside you reading a medical journal with her morning coffee, and you curse yourself for going to her place after a thirty six hour shift. You try to apologize but she just asks for what, and you indicate the obvious, which she doesn't get at all. You spell it out more bluntly, that you were just too tired the night before to do anything but sleep, and she giggles like you're kidding until she sees you're serious, and then she asks incredulously if that's all this is.

You know there's no answer to a question with that tone, but you need to say something to prevent a long conversation about who knows what. You remind her that you'll back off when she finds who she really wants - because you know it's not you - and that you can do the temporary thing until she finds something better. You know that first part is not exactly honest but not exactly a lie, and you take one look at her and see chick logic coming and remember that Karma hates you.

You think she'll understand until she looks at you like you're retarded before she starts giggling again and you wonder what else is in her coffee. She asks you if that's why you ran her off the first time and your head is throbbing so you just sort of nod and you know she's trying to decide if you're a fool or a coward. You wonder briefly which one gives you a better shot, but you know it really doesn't matter because she's out of your league anyway.

She tells you to do what you want – in a tone that indicates that you'd better only want one thing and she won't tell you what that is and you'd better figure it out quick - and then she Karev's you which is never, ever good in bed. You wonder what she wants from you because she knows the score as well as you do, except maybe she doesn't because more chick logic hits the fan, and you silently thank all the pagan gods you don't believe in that she still seems too frustrated to cry. You figure you've lost her but she doesn't take your key and then she's apologizing too for who knows what and you know it'll go back to being your fault if you don't shut her up soon, so you kiss her immediately but you try not to smudge her lip gloss because its morning so that's bonus points.

--

You never thought he was that stupid until you see him sitting in Richard's office, black eye still swelling as the stitches settle in his lip, and you're listening about charges being dropped, and you wonder why it's always Bailey's pod people and what he was thinking, but you know that he wasn't, and that it probably wouldn't have stopped him anyway.

You're ready to yell right there but Richard's doing all the talking, and you're ready to yell that night, but he doesn't come to your place, and you're ready to yell the next day when Richard's out-lining disciplinary action, and you're ready to yell the whole week after except that you don't see him at all as he serves his suspension. You know he's back at Meredith's and you shouldn't ask her about him, and you're too mad to talk when he comes back and his eye's still black and the stitches come out, but the mountain of paper work keeps growing and you're still trying to fathom why he did it.

He damn well needs to respect hierarchies and you light into him, daring him to utter a word without explicit permission. You work together in silence and that infuriates you even more and you tell him he can go back to Plastics full time if he's determined to behave like an adolescent Neanderthal. He works another night shift as part of his punishment and you burst into the on call room and you remember the warnings about cornering wild animals but the stalemate hangs between you and the minutes tick by and you wonder who'll break first.

"It was usually like this when he'd come home at night," he says, motioning vaguely to the darkness, " and he was drunk, or high, and furious, and I'd try to hide, and sometimes I'd fall asleep in the closet, waiting, and usually I wasn't that lucky," and it takes you a minute to figure out what he's talking about. "He almost had that look, that guy's kid," he insists, "like he knew that it was always going to be just him, and it was never going to stop. I couldn't let that happen, not again."

You get it all at once - why he hit the patient's father - and his voice is Karev's but his eyes are too brown and you're not sure who you're dealing with but there are no words anyway. Part of you wants to turn and run but you know that he can't be on your service when he's like this, and you certainly can't tell him what you came to, not at just this moment. But then the words you couldn't find tumble out like an avalanche and you can't look at him because whatever's coming you doubt you're ready.

--

You stop hearing anything else the minute she tells you she's pregnant. Her words keep coming and then she's waiting and it's your turn to talk and a strangled whisper that might be yours asks her what she's planning to do. Muffled apologizing fills the room and you wonder if she thinks you're mad at her when really you're mad at you, because you've done this before, and it's always the same, and it never ends in anything but you failing someone, and you hear her tell you that she expects nothing from you and you wonder if that's a relief or disappointing, that she knows you can't do this just as well as you do.

Your ears recover some after her first sonic boom and you hear her panicked plea that the tests had said it wasn't possible, that she'd hoped for this but never expected it, that the tests must have been wrong, and you'd heard that all before. Your head starts to spin and you need to sit down, except that you already are, and you'd sworn you'd be more careful after the last tests had been wrong. But you'd figured that Addison freaking Montgomery of all people would have been too smart to let this happen and you stare at her blankly because smart seems beyond either of you at the moment.

You really want to run this time because this has Disaster 2.0 written all over it and you don't want any more explanations and you know that you'll never be ready for what you never wanted in the first place. You know you can't run because then the kid will be like Grey, and you know you can't stay because then the kid will be like you, and you know either option's a train wreck and the train's already left the station either way. And it's your freaking fault and you've screwed up again and she's looking at you as if she's just asked you a question and you're still hoping your alarm clock goes off any minute now except that your nightmares have always come when they've pleased.


	2. Chapter 2

You'd heard your patients say how quickly the months pass before a first baby arrives, and you see their point as your pregnancy advances and the snickering in the hallways grows louder whenever you and he are within thirty feet of each other. You try not to spook him when you swap the high-rise condo for a house with a yard, wordlessly exchanging the keys on his key ring as you hand him the new address. That may have been a mistake, you suspect until later that week, when he turns up with his milk crates and tooth brush, and you hastily hide your book of baby names.

You try to be patient, because it's not his fault, and it's not really what he wants, and he has to put up with the hospital grapevine, too, with the teasing of his friends and the disapproval of his superiors. You ignore how he occasionally glances at your growing girth as if it's a crime scene, and how panic darkens his eyes when he passes the baby's future bedroom. You avoid stilted work conversations, since he now works in Plastics exclusively, and try not to giggle as he unpacks his milk crates - one filled with trophies, another with sports gear, a third with medical journals – and roots around for closet space for his clothes.

He had no say in the neighborhood, or the style of the house, or even the furnishings, and you realize that may have been a mistake, too, even though he's never said a word about any of it, and you doubt he cares. But it was rushed, and you have time now since you're on leave, so you have some shelves built for his trophies, and clear space in the bedroom closet, and neatly stash his journals.

You wonder if any accommodations you make will make him feel welcomed or make him feel trapped, and you try not to ask too many questions. You learn that what you'd taken for sullen silence is usually just quiet, that he can cook surprisingly well, and that he's moderately housebroken but has a visceral disdain for coasters and cloth napkins. You watch baffled as he paints the nursery yellow, and you wonder if he secretly hopes for a girl, until the Iowa baby blanket appears in the crib, and you recall his school colors.

You get better at matching his eyes to his personalities, and you learn that the five year old leaves cookie crumbs in bed, and the twelve year old leaves the milk on the counter just because; that Karev studies harder for his surgeries than you ever imagined, and the wrestler always goes on the offensive at the first hint of a fight; that jaguars look sleekest amid dark green sheets, and Alex notices everything. They all do.

You wonder if it's a good thing, all this noticing, because it's sweet when Alex knows how much non sugar to put in your ice tea, but it's scary how well the wrestler knows your weaknesses, and its sad when the vigilant five year old peeks out at you as if he's still waiting in that closet, terrified. You wonder if it's a good thing, that the jaguar knows just how to ensnare you, and the twelve year old just how to infuriate you, and Karev just how to drive you away. You wonder if you weren't better off with Derek's indifference or Mark's self-absorption, which at least were predictable. You wonder if it wasn't better to remain unseen, and you recall your mother's warning to be careful what you wish for.

That admonition crosses your mind when you hand your daughter to him for the first time, and you see his bewilderment as her big brown eyes stare back at him. You feel it too, when Madeline's eyes lock onto yours, because they look so familiar, as if they see right through you. And you're not religious, not formally, but you still say a silent prayer to whatever deity's on call that evening that her first word won't be "whatever."

--

You see her watching, as she has the past year and a half, watching this awkward dance between you and the child sleeping in your arms, her fingers curled around yours. You're familiar with the incredulous looks she gives you when you read to her daughter about wrestling, or face lifts, or football. You watch her shake her head as she retreats from the doorway, and you know she expects better from you, and you wonder if she knows that you're trying, and you wonder if trying matters.

You place the child gently in the crib, and wonder if you'll ever feel as if she's as much your daughter as she is her mother's, and if the child will resent your fumbling stabs at being a decent father. But you know the answer to that last question already, and you curse the hesitancy of your hands and your heart with her, and your face burns bright red, and you wonder if this child you still can't quite fully embrace will hover over her own child's crib someday with the same reluctance.

You know she's angry, so angry she can't speak, and you know she blames herself as well as you, and you know she wonders how different things might have been, if she had stayed married to Shepherd, or had had Sloan's baby instead of… instead of the one she got with you. You know that she deserves better, they both do, but that it's too late to run and too screwed up to continue as it is, and you knew it would happen this way and you tried to warn her but nothing ever goes as you plan, and it would help if your hands were just a little less stiff when you held her, and your breathing a little more steady.

You know she gets some of it, but you never did tell her the whole story about Ava, about your mother, and you know she doesn't get that you just can't, and that you just can't fail any more people, because that's all you ever do and that's all you are, and it's sucking the life out of what little is left of you. But you know there are no excuses, and coming close still means that you've lost, and you're a surgeon and surgeons can't just try, and you've always played to win.

You hear the child fussing and you pick her back up and return to the rocking chair, and you feel her head against your chest as she settles into you and you review the pathway of blood through the arteries and veins and you know it's all about tissue elasticity and fluid hydraulics and arterial valves opening and slamming shut. You know that that's all there is to a heart beat, that it's just the rhythmic, unconscious workings of a mechanical pump. But you know that hearing it calms her, and that her mother will say you're spoiling her again, and insist that she needs to learn to sleep on her own.

But you know that it gets cold at night, and dark even with a nightlight, and that monsters hide in closets, too, and that protecting her from the cold and the dark and the monsters can't possibly count as spoiling. You feel her go limp in your arms and you know that her mother will throw a fit if she catches you like this, again, in the morning. But you know that she just doesn't get it, that this is the best you can do, and that you may not be able to love her, but you can protect her, and make her feel warm, and safe, and not alone.

--

You knew that you should have warned him before you left that evening, but it was an emergency call. You knew you should have told him that she'd had her first nightmare the day before, and you knew the same fight was brewing when you returned to find him sitting in her closet, watching her sleep, idly fingering an extra Holly Hobby nightlight. He knows all about childhood phases; he's read the same books you have. But sometimes they're not phases, and you know better than to say much as you sit beside him.

You wish he would just stop, because you know why he's shaking almost imperceptibly, and you wish there were words to erase the fear carved into him as if with a scalpel, and you cringe when you tell him because you know he's heard it his whole life – heard it so long that he'll hear it no matter what you say – that he's not doing good enough, that he has to do better.

You hate this interminable civil war. There can be no truce, because all he hears when the guns start blazing is that he's a fool or a coward, even when you try to assure him, again, that her fears are different from his, that they're normal and common and that she'll grow out of them by herself. But you know he'll never believe that, that he can't imagine any other kinds of nightmares then those he knows, the kind that never go away, and that he's sure she can't be left alone with them.

You know you can't win this fight, but you can't lose it, either, because she has to learn to manage this for herself, or she'll be just like him. And you cringe when you think that, and you'd hoped he'd never notice, but he sees everything. You're not sure what's worse: that you don't want her to be like him, or that he'd agree. The equation's not that simple, but you know he still thinks you'd trade him in a heartbeat for a better model, and that really, that's all he can imagine.

But there's no point waking him now, and you knew it would be a long night. Pulling a blanket from the top shelf of the closet, you settle in on the floor beside him, spying your daughter's lacey princess costume from below. It reminds you of your wedding dress, of the day you married Derek, of the dancing and the finery and the cake, of what you had before you threw it all away – the Hamptons, the Brownstone, Central Park, the picture perfect life - before you were forty three, before you were a single mother, before you found yourself half stuffed into your child's closet at three a.m., listening to Karma chortle about being careful what you wish for.

--

You stir restlessly beside her, and it's been three weeks, and you still blush furiously when you recall that night. You wander out onto the wide covered porch, and it's just as quiet in this neighborhood at three a.m. as it is at noon, and you know that the cheap beer you're drinking would probably embarrass her in front of the rich neighbors, and that you'll always hate cloth napkins and fancy coasters, and that people like you don't live in neighborhoods like this.

You hear the porch creak, feel her sit beside you, and you're sure she's angry, and you wonder if maybe she thought you'd taken off for good. And you know she saw that look, when she'd blurted out during dinner that she wanted to get married, and you damn near chocked on your peas. You're sure she's disappointed, and you wonder if she'll say she didn't mean it. But she takes your hand, and you're sure she's expecting some kind of answer, and you know there's no winning out-come.

You see her fingers curled in your rough palms, and you're sure she still snickers at your choice of Plastics, at the great truth teller Karev pasting lies on peoples' faces and fake contours on their bodies. You're sure she'd think you had it coming, if you ever told her everything about Ava. You know you can out-earn her, when your residency's over and your practice is established, but you know you'll never erase the poverty that clings to you like a skunk's stench.

She's Addison Forbes Montgomery, and names like that don't marry names like yours, and she has everything she wanted - the career, the kid, the house, the clothes, the shoes – except the guy she dreams of, whose nothing like you. But she's leading you back to her bed, and it's not demanding or angry or frantic and it doesn't draw blood and your hands stop trembling, and this can't be what she wants, because that would mean she wants you, and no one has ever wanted you before - not for real - and you're sure she'd planned better than to end up with leftovers.

Then her soft lips and her precise surgeon's fingers are perusing you, finely dissecting tendons and ligaments, shearing muscle from bone, and you hear her contented murmur, and you wonder if this is what she wanted. You swear you glimpse a smirk as her teeth brush your neck, and her hands delicately unravel your body, leaving you defenseless in her snare. You puzzle over the care that she takes with leftovers, and you wonder if your bones will be picked clean by morning, your carcass tossed casually to the insects. But day break comes, and she's still curled around your remains, her skin melded to yours like a bandage placed tenderly over raw flesh, and you wonder if this is what she wanted, when she said she wanted more.

--

The civil war continues, and you know he's not Derek, and he's as far from indifferent as you could have gotten, and you're surprised that he spends some evenings on the porch as her latest phase passes. You hesitate to say anything because then he'll think you've won or that he's failed, and you know that he's out there muttering under his breath that she's not even two years old yet. You know that he's trying, but you wonder sometimes how different a child with Mark's brilliant blue eyes and sunny exuberance might be from the stubborn, brown-eyed cyclone wreaking untold havoc across the hall.

You shake your head again later that night when he reads to her from Sports Illustrated and you watch him put her to bed, double checking the night light and the window locks before he leaves her room. You cringe at his vigilance and you know that this fight will get worse as she gets older, and that sometimes she still falls asleep in his arms before he's done recapping the boxing match or the football game, and that he still thinks you'd disapprove. You wish you didn't need him to believe that at the moment, and you hope someday he gets it anyway, that warm and safe and not alone are a lot of what love is.

Later the following evening you wait. You know that he's still at the hospital with a burn victim, but that he usually spends his days inserting fake boobs into co-eds and sucking imaginary fat out of twenty-somethings, and that that's not really medicine, and you're forty three and had a baby late and are back to your usual weight but it's not all where it used to be. You know he sees it because he sees everything, damn him, and you know he notices, and you think you've still got it, but you wonder if whatever it is that you've still got is any longer to his taste.

But then it's melting in his hands and quivering at his touch, and a pounding rain sweeps the windows and thunder rumbles through your body and you spy his eyes glinting as he surrounds you and you remember that he hunts under the cover of darkness. You know you need to defend your territory, even as the roar of the jungle fades into the chatter of insects and the muted purr of the predator coiling lazily around you. You know that a drowsy jaguar is still a grave threat, but defenseless when your claws tease the soft spots under his ribcage. You know you shouldn't listen too closely to his murmurings, since you realize as well as he does that any vocalizations can be dangerously ambiguous.

You know that he doesn't trust proposals or plans, and you're sure that he's been preyed on before, that he heard promises and excuses and lies, before his blood spattered and his bones broke. You know that you're a surgeon, that it's your job to cut out the disease and tend the wounds and hope for healing. But you know that surgeons often do more harm than good, and you wonder if you're being humane, or if PETA would be aghast, your mother horrified, and Callie amused, if they knew you slept wrapped in a jaguar pelt.

You know he's doing his best, and you wish you could tell him that without it sounding like a frontal assault. But you saw his face when you proposed, and at first you thought he feared being trapped, but then you looked again, and saw that he was shocked that you wanted him. You wondered if that was Karma's ultimate revenge, that he saw through your cheating on Derek, that he saw through your aborting Mark's baby, that he saw you just for you, and wanted you anyway, but figured you'd never want him.

You're already half asleep when he comes home the next evening, and you wonder if he'll say a word about your proposal, but you know he's tired because you hear no cookie wrappers crinkling – a just cause for murder if ever there was one - and because he's still a little damp from his shower. You shiver slightly as he crawls in beside you, reminding you that a jaguar's coat is cool and silky when moist. You know that it's force of habit, how your hands smooth his velvety skin as it dries, but then he's warm and purring and you gather him closer and you wonder if he'll ever get that jaguars are hunted, too.

You know that he stalks you still, even through the halls of Seattle Grace, where you're the top surgeon in your field, his unquestioned superior. You hail a cab at lunch, and you watch his hand shake slightly when he signs the forms, and you breathe a sigh of relief when his "I do" does not come out as "Dude, whatever" and you share your first meal as husband and wife – hot dogs on the court house steps. You giggle as he wipes mustard off your nose, and gasp when you realize that you forgot to change your shoes, and are wearing old sneakers. You know that he notices, because he notices everything – damn him - and you wonder which eyes will look back at you today, and whether you've gone from adulterer to polygamist, since you apparently married all six of him.

You know time flies and it's been six months and you should have tossed those sneakers weeks ago. But they are technically wedding shoes, and you wonder if someday you'll show your daughter the photograph album that you can't quite part with, of the day you married your prince, of the fairy tale party with the beautiful flowers and the elegant gown, or if you'll admit to her that you're relieved no photographers caught the mustard on your nose, the day you married the help.

You see the moonlight glint off his wedding band, and you track your fingers down his spine, and his eyes peel open and you remember all those warnings from your childhood trips to the zoo about not disturbing the wild life, and you're all for enforcing the rules, but his purring is dangerously hypnotic. You hear Karma in the corner, chortling at you to listen to your mother and keep your hands to yourself and be careful what you wish for, and you're gripped by a sudden urge to reach under the bed and hurl an expensive Manolo at Her. Then you remember that Manolos scuff, and that your old sneakers are still under there, too. But to reach them, you'd have to loosen your grip, and a predator never releases her trophy in the presence of jackals.

.


End file.
